UAlbany holds on to beat St. Francis; 4th straight win

ALBANY — The University at Albany scored the first 18 point of the game, but had to hold on at the end to defeat St. Francis Brooklyn 77-73 at SEFCU Arena Wednesday night. The win was the fourth straight for the Danes, who are now 7-2 and off to their first start since joining the Division I ranks in 1999.

Two free throws by Jacob Iati with 1.4 seconds lift gave the Danes the final margin of victory.

Mike Black scored 21 points for the Danes and Iati had 20. UAlbany was able to survive despite committing a season-high 18 turnovers.

St. Francis Brooklyn, which plays in the Northeast Conference, drops to 2-4.

The Danes jumped out to an 18-0 lead while St. Francis, which came in making 47 percent of its field goals, missed its first 16 shot.

“We were looking to set a record,” said St. Francis coach Glenn Braica. “If you coach long enough, you are going to see everything.”

Once the Danes got out to the big lead, the Terriers began to chip away. As soon as St. Francis was done by 18, the Terriers went on a 22-7 run to cut the deficit to 25-22. From there, it was a game to the wire.

St. Francis took its only lead, 39-38, with 16:31 left in the game on a basket by Kevin Douglas, but the Danes took it right back on a 3-pointer by Iati, who had 17 of his 20 points in the second half.

“I was surprised by our quick start,” said UAlbany coach Will Brown, who said the last two days of practice weren’t great, “but I am not surprised they came back. We did what we had to do to win the game.”

Travis Nichols led the Terriers with 21 points and Ben Mockford had 18. All of his points came via the 3-point shot. He was 6-for-12 from 3-point range, and missed a potential game-tying 3-pointer with 20.6 seconds left and the Danes leading, 73-70.

Senior center Blake Metcalf had a season-high 13 rebounds for the Danes, all of them on the defensive end. He also contributed six points.

UAlbany will be on the road Saturday for a game at Colgate and then be back home for a game against South Carolina State next Wednesday.

nice win by UA in an ugly game, key word ugly. A W is a W. Glad to see one of the schools are playing well for their schedules. What I read they are still having a toygh time scoring and hanging on to a lead. If the upcoming game coachs figure UA out knowing they can press it may be a long season. Hope Brown has answers.

Im way impressed how Jacob is able to get his shots off…and mostly good looks too….that lefty Aussie made some sick 3’s last night…I like alot that coach is giving Hooley alot of minutes…he can get to the tin strongly and even had a couple dishes out for 3’s on dribble drives….I like what I’m seeing…

Another story line could be called “Consistency”. Nearly all of the runs involved crisp passing and often a sharp lookin pass to a big man. All of the stalls, like we saw last night occur when then guards, usually Mike feel that they are the show and must penetrate into a mass. How many poor shots, turnovers and charges did they commit?

Stay with the basics until it is crucnh time, then a solo event with a twisting running may be the order of the day.
Great win, none the less. EXceptionally hold on to the victory as well.

Agree with #4–a ton of charges and some head scratchers from Mike–but that’s kind of what you get with him. All I know is every time St. Francis got within 2 or 3, Black would drill a three to give us a cushion again.

Still, the margin might have been a bit more impressive if Mockford didn’t take the game over for a ten minute stretch–that dude was hitting some bombs

They do need to figure out a different response to a half court trap press. The games I’ve seen this year UA could be had defensively. Once St. Francis saw UA could turn it over, they played a very hard and determined defense to their credit. Hooley is a very nice player. Iati is probably the key to the team. Black isn’t great every game but that’s just the way it is. If Black’s on, there’s nothing the opponent can do to stop him so they might as well instead try to put a blanket over Iati. Iati works really hard and hustles. I don’t think there’s a player on the team who isn’t willing to get a floor burn the length of his body if it increases by 1% the chance of getting the ball. Pretty impressive in many ways. Evans does a nice job as point guard back up. There was a guy on the UA board this summer saying some juco transer was going to take this team to the Sweet 16 or such (I exaggerate). Seemed like he was the transfer’s press agent or grandfather or something. Nice enough guy. Was that Evans he was talking about? I don’t remember. Evans is a nice pick up though. Except for Loyola, it’s great UA finds a way to win these games. And I think they would love to have Loyola back.

Give me more credit-I was putting them down earlier than last summer. I’m still not convinced but at least hopeful. I don’t think Brown’s a great coach. What can I say? Late last season he discovered Iati could play. His teams still can’t insert a dagger because with a lead when he seems to insist going so late in the shot clock they get a poor shot or nothing at all. He has so many suits around him at the bench I think they’ve started a second row of chairs. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen the players take their eye off the action because he’s yelling instructions to them when they’re on the far side of the court. Just a little nitpiking about these things. But I’ll give them credit for having done a very nice job so far. I’ve said before, 3 things matter to me in measuring the team each year. If they make one of the 3, I’m satisfied. I want them to 1. beat Siena or 2. win the conference or 3. win the conference tournament. Thus, I’m satisfied for this season already.